


Moving Out of the Past

by Merfilly



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Injury Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 19:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1316323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the League solidifies under Black Canary, Wonder Woman can see that their leader is brutal to herself above all others</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving Out of the Past

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to eventually lead to BC/WW, but the book changed hands, and they were undermining BC's role to the point I lost interest. Hence the incomplete ending here.

When Dinah had been a young woman, barely more than a girl, she had made up her mind that she wanted a man who was smart, strong, suave, and sexy. She had found Oliver Queen, and they had enjoyed a chemistry that denied the horrors, trials, and distractions of costumed vigilantism...to a point.

They had lost what made them work, somewhere in Seattle, lost to the advances of a Yakuza bow-mistress, or maybe to Dinah's own lack of willingness to keep him in line. Either way, they had moved apart, leading new lives independent of one another, until Oliver got himself killed.

As sometimes happened in their business, he came back, and Dinah was all too willing to forget the past mistakes to have him back. Which lasted until he repeated said past mistakes. And she left him again, swearing it was for the final time.

Except...the world fell down around them, and in putting it back together, they found that old chemistry drawing them right back together. So many people warned them that it was a mistake. Neither Dinah nor Oliver had ever been good at listening to people giving them sound advice, and they rushed right into things at breakneck speed, again.

Which had led to shared adventures, shared heartache, and a slow discovery by them both that their lives had shaped them into two very different people from that over-eager heroine and her Errol Flynn lover. It was not a reason anyone in the betting pool had picked for their inevitable divorce, but J'onn had a knowing look in his eyes when it quietly circulated that the Pretty Bird and her Emerald Archer had called it quits, that they truly were only meant to be friends.

He knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that it would only take time for Dinah to find the piece that matched her ragged heart now.

* * *

Diana observed the team leader in the middle of brutal combat practice in the Kitchen, utilizing a custom program that pitted Dinah against some of the fiercest warriors in their data banks. Too often, after missions, Diana had found her like this, as if she had not sweated and bled enough in the course of their duties. There were days when Diana almost grasped the reasoning behind it. Then, other days, Diana truly wondered where the Blonde Bombshell persona had gone, and who this almost Bat-like stranger was.

She waited, thinking that Dinah could use some form of distraction, something to pull her away from the Hall of Justice. Unless it was her turn to keep Lian, so Roy could have time to himself, it seemed like Dinah was always in residence. Diana found that to be more than a little unhealthy, for many of the same reasons she had kept after Bruce about his work habits.

* * *

Dinah finally put down the last virtual opponent, her body shaking with the effort she had put forth. With a sigh, she told the Kitchen to end program, walking through the surreal non-space it formed in the absence of a program, to the door. She was not expecting anyone to be waiting; the mission against Faust earlier had taxed everyone enough to warrant asking the JSA to keep an ear out and letting most of the full time members have the rest of the day off.

"Diana? Something wrong?" Dinah asked, her voice low with exhaustion.

"I think maybe there is," Diana commented softly. "Dinah...cousin." She pushed against that honorary bond they had, through her mother's involvement with the JSA, specifically as one of Wildcat's lovers. "You're pushing yourself too hard."

"Don't think you can tell me that, Diana." Dinah's voice went crisp, hard with anger. "Some of us don't have the advantage of godly gifts."

"No, they don't...and none of us expect you to push to the point that you do, either." Diana's jaw set hard. "It's the blind push I see in you that too many of us had before."

It only made Dinah's famous temper flare, seeing that patronizing arrogance directed her way. "My League won't fail," she growled. "I won't let it. And that means being a solid, hard-forged fighter to be able to lead them!"

Diana stared at her a moment, then back at the Kitchen, before shaking her head. "This is about that failure? About the League falling apart, because of Light?"

Dinah flinched at the mention of that particular man, of the reminder of her greatest sins. "This is about me being true to my legacy and to my self."

"Careful you don't let that self disappear under the load of guilt and duty you've burdened yourself with...or we'll be finding a bat symbol to put over the golden bird." With that, Diana walked out, leaving Dinah to stew, even as the Amazon chewed over what that brief conversation had taught her about her 'cousin'.

* * *

Drop. Sweep. Move. Breathe in deep, ready the voice...

Her Cry dropped at least three of the aliens who had decided the Earth looked like a welcome place to invade this week. She wasn't even sure what they were, as J'onn was off with the Outsiders, and she didn't have a Lantern to identify them. Near her, she heard the reassuring twang of a bow string being played expertly by Red Arrow. Off to the left, the smell of ozone sizzled as Black Lightning worked effectively with Geo-Force. She could hear Hawkgirl's loud shrieks and battle cries in the air above them, accompanied by the harder challenges Wonder Woman threw at their opponents.

It was looking like things were well in hand. She dropped back momentarily to listen to her comm, a report that John Stewart was on his way with Kyle. With two Lanterns on the task, she was sure they could get to the bottom of this. She turned to go back into battle, calling out over the comm.

"Lanterns en route, continue to try to contain the hostiles."

"Will do, Black Canary!" came from her teammates in varying tones of determination and confidence. She focused on the nearest of the aliens, considered tearing the ground up in front of it, when pain sizzled through every nerve ending she possessed. The smell of scorched hair, over-heated leather, and burning skin registered before merciful oblivion encompassed her.

* * *

Diana had served with many members of the League. She had seen allies fall, and the vicious turn in battle it always caused.

She was not prepared for the cold fury and fear that swept into Red Arrow as soon as he was aware Black Canary was down. Intellectually knowing that the young man and their leader shared a bond was far different from seeing the way it transformed the archer on the field. He was still carefully non-lethal in every shot...but no one his arrows tagged was going to get back up soon. He'd been instinctively cataloging the weak points throughout the battle, and now used them with devastating accuracy, working his way toward the one who had taken his Dinah down with a coward's shot.

It left Diana free to get in there, to get to the wounded woman and be sure the scorching had been an effect of the blast, not a lingering problem. The Amazon took a stand over top the fallen chairwoman, sword out and ready, shield in place on her other arm. No one would get through to their leader, as the rest of the League circled in tighter, falling back to await the reinforcements. It was tactically perfect; the aliens thought they had gotten an upper hand by taking out the loud, small thing leading their adversaries.

They didn't see the Lanterns arrival, not until unbreakable green energy swelled around them, caging them and turning their blasts back toward them. 

"Black Canary's down," Diana reported quickly to the two Lanterns. She thought she saw the cage Kyle was using constrict, just a little. It took a moment for Diana to place why; Kyle had remained semi-close to the original Green Lantern...who had a vested interest in the welfare of the League chair. Those JSA ties again...

"Copy that," John Stewart called to her. "We'll handle these folks...they're wanted on Oa, anyway. Take your team back in, Wonder Woman."

//My team?// she thought, to herself. Granted, she was senior-most on the field now, but she and Kal and Bruce had been careful about where they would stand in the new League.

As if hearing her doubts, Black Lightning looked at her for guidance, and that made her nod. She shipped her shield, slid her sword home, and gently lifted the Canary. Arrow started to open his mouth, but a wing-scorched Hawkgirl dropped near him to pick him up, and he gave up the protest. He let his partner carry him, but his eyes remained on Diana the entire flight home.

* * *

"...needs more..."

"...staying _here_..."

"...be in good..."

The snatches of conversation meant very little as they filtered in and out of semi-lucid dreams. The peppering of Greek and Dineh in the arguments that seemed to be ever-present only served as contrast to the barely intelligible English.

Mostly, the woman falling in and out of dreams craved sleep, a sleep uninterrupted by horrors and aliens and pain.

Maybe, when the arguing stopped, so would the nightmares.

* * *

Diana glared at Roy for the fifteenth time. "She's going to need time away from the stress of the League."

"She can have that at my home!" Roy snapped back.

"Where you will have your hands full with your daughter and let her get away with too much," Diana shot back.

"Lian knows how to help take care of an injured fighter," Roy retorted.

"And when Dinah sees a news program?"

That last got Roy's attention, and he wavered. Sure, he could lean on the reservation...but the League could not do without him and Dinah. Diana pressed the point swiftly.

"If I take her with me, she'll be safe, with women who know how to help a warrior recover, and away from the things that will make her try to come back too soon."

"I'm still not so sure about safe where your people are concerned," Roy sulked.

"I explained that all to you already, Roy Harper. Mother would **never** let harm come to the child of her ally." Diana glared at him, but she understood. The madness following the return of Themyscira to Man's World had been harsh and damaged things, but it had all been Circe's and Granny Goodness's doing. She was sure that she would find safe haven with her mother, newly restored leader of the restored Amazons, long enough to see Dinah healed and rehabilitated.

"I'll hold you responsible for my Dinah's safety and health." Roy turned on his heel, going to find Kendra, rather than truly conscience Diana taking the woman away.

Diana had begun to bristle over that possessive article, until the spark of Truth still within her made her hear all the shades of love and fealty there. It was one more piece of a puzzle for Diana, who wanted to truly understand this 'cousin' now that they were truly colleagues in arms.

* * *

Hippolyta had, with all blessings, allowed Diana to use one of the seaside cottages for the initial recuperation. There was no need, the queen said, to burden the young Canary with palace intrigues so soon after a brutal injury. Diana concurred, and preferred to be away from those who still called her 'The Dragon' in such hateful, distrusting tones.

Now, she kept watch over the woman who still only saw consciousness in brief bursts. Like Nightwing after the Battle of Metropolis, sleep was truthfully the only way for her body to mend. Too many nerves had been overloaded by the blast. Tissue damage from the heat of it had been severe, but the miracles of alien technology and human genius had applied therapies for that.

Sleep was the true Gilead's Balm to make it all work, but Diana found her vigil to be a lonely one, broken only by the nightmares of a woman who had learned to repress far more than could be healthy.

What Diana heard, she filed away for future sessions of therapy, intending to see Dinah well and truly whole before they left this island.


End file.
